19 March 2010

Making Plans for Lena

Dysfunctional-family dramas have become as French as tarte aux pommes, from Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale and Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart to Christophe Honoré’s latest, Making Plans for Lena (Non Ma Fille, Tu N'iras pas Danser)...After filming three movies in his homeland’s capital, what he’s taken to calling his “Paris Trilogy” [this, this, and this] Honoré escapes the city for the countryside; shooting with a pale palette, under gray skies and palpably, perpetually damp air, Honoré fashions his Margot at the Wedding, though unlike Noah Baumbach he finds quiet flashes of grace amid the harried realism of strained family relations.